Editing Amy Levy (section)

== Biography ==

=== Early life and education ===
Levy was born in [[Clapham]], an affluent district of London, on 10 November 1861, to Lewis and Isobel Levy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wagenknecht |first=Edward |title=Daughters of the Covenant: Portraits of Six Jewish Women |year=1983 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |isbn=978-0-87023-396-8| url=https://archive.org/details/daughtersofcoven0000wage|url-access=registration }}</ref> She was the second of seven children born into a Jewish family with a "casual attitude toward religious observance",<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last=Beckman |first=Linda Hunt |url=https://archive.org/details/amylevyherlifele0000beck |title=Amy Levy: Her Life and Letters |publisher=Ohio University Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-8214-1329-5 |location=Athens, Ohio |language=en |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{Rp|page=13}} who sometimes attended a [[Reform synagogue]] in Upper Berkeley Street,<ref name="auto" />{{Rp|page=17}} the [[West London Synagogue]]. As an adult, Levy continued to identify herself as Jewish and wrote for ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]''.<ref name="auto"/>{{Rp|page=138}}

Levy showed an interest in literature from an early age. At 13, she wrote a criticism of [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]]'s feminist work ''[[Aurora Leigh]]''; at 14, Levy's first poem, "Ida Grey: A Story of Woman's Sacrifice", was published in the journal ''Pelican''. Her family was supportive of women's education and encouraged Amy's literary interests; in 1876, she was sent to [[Brighton and Hove High School]] and later studied at [[Newnham College, Cambridge]]. Levy was the first Jewish student at Newnham when she arrived in 1879 but left before her final year.<ref name="auto" />{{Rp|page=55}}

Her circle of friends included [[Clementina Black]], [[Ellen Wordsworth Darwin]], [[Dollie Radford]], [[Eleanor Marx]] (daughter of [[Karl Marx]]), and [[Olive Schreiner]]. While travelling in [[Florence]] in 1886, Levy met [[Vernon Lee]], a fiction writer and literary theorist six years her senior, and fell in love with her.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ledger |first=Sally |title=The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the Fin de Siècle |year=1997 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-4093-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e0i8AAAAIAAJ}}</ref> Both women went on to explore the themes of [[History of lesbianism|sapphic love]] in their works. Lee inspired Levy's poem "To Vernon Lee".{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

=== Literary career ===
''[[The Romance of a Shop]]'' (1888), Levy's first novel, is regarded as an early "[[New Woman]]" novel and depicts four sisters who experience the difficulties and opportunities afforded to women running a business in 1880s London.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bernstein |first=Susan David |title=The Romance of a Shop |year=2006 |publisher=Broadview Press |isbn=1-55111-566-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/romanceofshop0000levy }}</ref> Levy wrote her second novel, ''Reuben Sachs'' (1888), to fill the literary need for "serious treatment&nbsp;... of the complex problem of Jewish life and Jewish character", which she identified and discussed in a 1886 article "The Jew in Fiction."<ref>{{cite book |last=Beckman |title=Amy Levy: Her Life and Letters |year=2005 |page=159}}</ref>

Levy wrote stories, essays, and poems for popular or literary periodicals; the stories "Cohen of Trinity" and "Wise in Their Generation", both published in [[Oscar Wilde]]'s magazine ''[[The Woman's World]]'', are among her most notable. In 1886, Levy began writing a series of essays on Jewish culture and literature for ''The Jewish Chronicle'', including ''The Ghetto at Florence'', ''The Jew in Fiction'', ''Jewish Humour'', and ''Jewish Children.''{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

Levy's works of poetry, including the daring ''A Ballad of Religion and Marriage'', reveal her feminist concerns. ''Xantippe and Other Verses'' (1881) includes "Xantippe", a poem in the voice of [[Xanthippe|Socrates's wife]]; the volume ''A Minor Poet and Other Verse'' (1884) includes more dramatic monologues as well as lyric poems. Her final book of poems, ''A London Plane-Tree'' (1889), contains lyrics that are among the first to show the influence of [[Symbolism (movement)|French symbolism]].<ref>"Levy, Clemintina Black, and Liza of Lambeth", Emma Francis, in Naomi Hetherington and Nadia Valman (eds), ''Amy Levy: Critical Essays''.</ref>

=== Sexuality ===
Levy remains a topic of discussion amongst scholars in terms of whether or not she is to be considered a Victorian Lesbian writer. She had sent several poems to her friend Violet Paget, also known as Vernon Lee, confessing her love. These poems include her famous works "To Vernon Lee" and "New Love, New Life." Both of these pieces express messages of unrequited love to another woman. Scholars{{who|date=December 2020}} continue to debate if these gestures were that of friendship or intense passion.{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole section|date=November 2018}}

=== Death ===
Levy experienced episodes of [[Major depressive disorder|major depression]] from an early age. In her later years, her depression worsened in connection to her distress surrounding her romantic relationships and her awareness of her growing deafness. On 9 September 1889,<ref name="TypoObituary"/> two months away from her 28th birthday, she died by suicide "at the residence of her parents ... [at] [[Endsleigh Gardens]]" by inhaling [[carbon monoxide]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Levy |first1=Amy |last2=Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture. NcD |last3=Leona Bowman Carpenter Collection of English and American Literature. NcD |date=8 February 1889 |title=A London plane-tree : and other verse |url=https://archive.org/details/londonplanetreeo89levy |access-date=8 February 2018 |publisher=London : T. Fisher Unwin |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Oscar Wilde wrote an obituary for her in ''The Women's World'' in which he praised her gifts.<ref>''Modern British Poetry: A Critical Anthology'' (edited by [[Louis Untermeyer]]), 1920, 1925, 1930 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. (no ISBN), pp. 270–71.</ref> The first Jewish woman to be cremated in England, her ashes were buried at [[Balls Pond Road Cemetery]] in London.<ref name="Medd">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=28rZCgAAQBAJ&q=west+london+synagogue+balls+pond+road&pg=PA127|title=The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature |date=2015 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |editor-last=Medd |editor-first=Jodie |pages=127|isbn= 978-1-107-05400-4|access-date= 14 January 2021}}</ref>